SA consumers drowning in debt
Nomsa Motshegare, CEO of the National Credit Regulator, has warned against the reckless spending over the festive season after statistics published by the credit bureau for the quarter ended September 2013 indicate that consumers are drowning in debt.
Credit bureaus held records for 20.29 million credit-active consumers, an increase of 0.4% when compared to the 20.21 million in the previous quarter.
Consumers classified in good standing increased by 9,000, to 10.53 million consumers.
As a percentage of the total number of credit-active consumers at 51.9%, this reflects a decrease of 0.1% quarter-on-quarter and 1.1% year-on-year.
The number of consumers with impaired records increased by 71,000 to 9.76 million, from 9.69 million in the previous quarter.
The number of accounts decreased from 71.20 million in the previous quarter to 71.17 million.
The number of impaired accounts increased from 18.87 million to 19.25 million when compared to the previous quarter, an increase of 375,000 quarter-on-quarter and 1.99 million year-on-year.
A total of 357.65 million enquiries were made on consumer credit records, a decrease of 0.7% quarter-on-quarter and an increase of 11.5% year-on-year.
Enquiries initiated by consumers accounted for 16.16 million of all enquiries, an increase of 1.6% quarter-on-quarter and 1.5% year-on-year.
Of the total enquiries made on consumer records, enquiries from banks and other financial institutions accounted for 85.1%, enquiries from retailers accounted for 3.2% and enquiries from telecommunication providers accounted for 4.6%.
Banks and other financial institutions’ enquiries decreased by 0.2% from the previous quarter, retailers decreased by 43.3% and telecommunication providers increased by 12.1%.
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